


Five Things Sherlock Holmes Will Never Admit Out Loud

by Raina_at



Series: Five Things [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 08:04:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16114274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raina_at/pseuds/Raina_at
Summary: Five things Sherlock will never admit out loud





	Five Things Sherlock Holmes Will Never Admit Out Loud

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2010 as a companion piece to Five Things John Watson Will Never Tell Anyone.  
> Thank you, Goodbyemyfancy for the beta 2010.  
> Also, I've started writing again and I currently have neither a beta nor a britpicker, so if anyone has time and inclination to beta some Sherlock for me, please let me know :-)

I

John needs a flatmate because he can’t afford to live on his own. Sherlock’s situation is exactly the reverse. None of the reasons Sherlock has a flatmate have anything to do with money, because that is one commodity Sherlock has plenty of. Of course, John, having met Mycroft and having seen the way Sherlock dresses, should be perfectly aware of this. How he has so far failed to make this deduction is something Sherlock quite frankly marvels at every time John belabours the point of Sherlock accepting remuneration for his work or getting what John calls a ‘regular’ job.

One of the main reasons Sherlock wanted (not _needed_ , no matter what Mycroft and Mrs. Hudson say) a flatmate comes down to his last landlord and the fact that he had Sherlock evicted. 

A complete and utter overreaction, of course. Granted, Sherlock did omit to pay the rent a few months in a row, but if catching dangerous criminals isn’t a good reason for losing track of something as mundane as rent, then Sherlock doesn’t know what is. Granted, there was also a chemical incident, and granted his insurance didn’t cover fire damage, but it was an once in a lifetime occurrence because Sherlock will never, ever leave the Bunsen burner on when he leaves the house again. 

Admittedly, the flat did need a bit of cleaning after Sherlock vacated it, but every household produces dust and mould. And if the landlord didn’t wish to see Sherlock’s body parts collection in the freezer, he shouldn’t have made the police break into his flat to evict him.

So when Mrs. Hudson offered him 221B, he considered that it would probably be a good idea to have somebody around to take care of the boring, mundane details like paying the rent, vacuuming, and turning off the Bunsen burner if Sherlock passes out over his experiments. 

Additionally, Sherlock is aware that he must occasionally eat and sleep, and it’s easier to remember this when there is somebody around who does both regularly. Also, the likelihood of there being food around is greatly increased if somebody in the house actually does the shopping. 

Before John moved in, Sherlock also figured out that the advantages of living with a doctor would outweigh the disadvantages. In the equation of excellent emergency care versus a possibly annoying habit of inquiring somewhat too closely into his substance use, the former won simply because Sherlock has discovered that people can never tell whether he’s high or just unusually stimulated by a problem.

For all of the above reasons, he expected to like having a flatmate. He didn’t, however, expect to like his flatmate. 

To his surprise, he discovered that the reasons he likes living with John have nothing to do with him doing the shopping, the vacuuming, him paying the rent and the utilities and stopping Sherlock from destroying the flat in any way that will make even Mrs. Hudson evict them. In fact it has everything to do with John, who, underneath his quietly normal façade, is intelligent, interesting, capable, strong, who he can talk to and have some outside chance of being understood, who thinks Sherlock is brilliant as well as weird, who can keep up with Sherlock in every way save intellectually (which, let’s be honest, nobody else could, either). 

Sherlock quite logically deduced that living with another person would make life easier. He never considered that living with another person could make life this much _better_.

 

II

Sometimes, when even he is stumped, when even he is out of his depth, when there is something going on that even he can’t understand, when there’s a piece of the puzzle he _just can’t see_ , he’ll swallow his pride and ask Mycroft for help.

Because somewhere deep inside, Sherlock knows that Mycroft is cleverer than him. Mycroft has all of his abilities of observation and deduction, but in addition to that, Mycroft has some qualities that Sherlock knows he lacks.

Mycroft understands people. He knows how to play with their insecurities and their weaknesses, knows how to build them up and tear them down, knows _why_ people do things, not just how. Mycroft had John figured out five seconds after they met. Sherlock did too, but he wouldn’t have considered manipulating John into a stubborn loyalty to Sherlock by reverse-psychologically trying to bribe him into betraying Sherlock. Mycroft plays John like an instrument every time they’re in the same room, and Sherlock both admires his skill and resents him for manipulating John, who, if Sherlock had his way, would have permanent immunity from being used as a weapon, or a bargaining chip, or a chess piece.

Mycroft also knows how to play the system. He’s like a spider in an intricately woven net of power and connections, nothing overt, nothing flashy, no titles, but for all intents and purposes, Sherlock knows that if Mycroft wanted to go to war with New Guinea, then to war with New Guinea they would go. Mycroft commands resources Sherlock can only dream of, and he got into this position not only because he is more brilliant than everybody he meets (though he is), but because he knows how the system works and how to use favours and information and observation to devastating and exhilarating effect.

What makes the real difference, though, is that Mycroft has no conscience whatsoever. No perception of right and wrong. No respect for human life. No boundaries. No lines he won’t cross. 

Nobody but John suspects, but Sherlock does have a conscience. He would never kill if he could avoid it. He would never harm another person just for the fun of it. Not necessarily because he considers himself a good person, but because he knows that if he went bad, he would go quite spectacularly bad. If he ever crossed that line where killing is as easy as it is for Mycroft, who kills with an order, a look, a wave of his hand, a phone call, if he ever let himself regard this last threshold as meaningless, there would be no limit to what he would be capable of.

For all of the above reasons, Sherlock knows that if he reaches his limit, Mycroft is the only person who can truly help him. For all of the above reasons, Sherlock knows that if he ever does cross that line, Mycroft will be there to stop him. 

 

III

It was the greatest case he ever had. It was an exhilarating, exciting, fantastic ride, a game spanning the whole country and decades of history, a thrill both personal and abstract. Carl Powers, the bombs, the constant stream of little mysteries all tied together to one big mystery, the chase, the danger, the darkness; Sherlock never felt this alive, this challenged, this brilliant.

Not for one second was he worried, or afraid, not for one moment did the fear and helplessness of the victims get to him in his rapture of intellectual abstraction, not once did emotion get in the way of his purely academic enjoyment of the puzzle, the great chess game between him and Moriarty.

And then. And then suddenly, abruptly, it all ground to a screeching, ugly halt. Suddenly, next to that darkened pool, a red dot on the explosives strapped to John, Sherlock stopped having fun. Suddenly, he saw this entire game for what it was, a sordid, crazy, obsessive mind-fuck, and he felt neither exhilarated nor challenged, but sick and tired. Because from one second to the next, Sherlock realized that in this game he actually had something to lose. And suddenly, he didn’t want to play anymore. He just wanted it to be over. He wanted to rip that bomb vest off John; he wanted to shoot Moriarty in the face. Fuck the game, fuck the plans, fuck winning or losing or figuring out Moriarty’s plans, he just wanted to grab John and run. 

Suddenly, he was scared.

They got out, of course. Sherlock shot at the bomb, and John pushed them into the pool like Sherlock knew he would, and then John dragged him out and saved his life (again) and got him to the hospital.

Afterwards, just after Sherlock got out of the hospital, over breakfast, John asks what they’re going to do now, how they’re going to go after Moriarty.

There are a few lines they could pursue. They have a name, they have a description, they have Carl Powers. Normally, Sherlock would be on the trail already, hunting Moriarty like a hellhound and bringing him down swiftly and precisely.

But.

Sherlock looks at John, morning paper in front of him, buttered toast on his plate, breadcrumbs sticking to his lower lip, sitting there in his black-and-white pyjamas, his hair still unruly from bed, looking pleased and a little amused because he spiked Sherlock’s tea with antibiotics and Sherlock is drinking it anyway, even though they both know Sherlock knows. And suddenly Sherlock almost can’t breathe because he feels his throat constrict and his heart beat faster and his stomach clench. 

_I almost got you blown up,_ he thinks. 

He swallows, and John frowns at him over the breakfast table. Sherlock shrugs. “No need to chase him, he’s everywhere. We just need to follow the crimes; sooner or later they’ll lead us to him.” 

John looks at him searchingly, but finally he nods and accepts Sherlock’s words at face value, then goes back to reading his paper. 

Sherlock quietly sips his tea and hopes nobody will ever know that there is one criminal out there who has found a way to make Sherlock Holmes afraid of him. 

IV 

Sherlock can’t sleep anywhere else than John’s room and John’s bed anymore. John’s room is everything Sherlock’s isn’t - it’s clean and neat and orderly, it’s light and warm and it smells good, it’s white noise and emptiness. And John’s bed is soft and big and insanely comfortable. 

But Sherlock knows it isn’t the room. And it isn’t the bed, either. 

He’s never been good at sleeping. He only ever sleeps when there’s nothing more pressing demanding his attention, like a case or an experiment or even just an interesting line of thought worth pursuing. 

Sometimes, though, the constant noise in his mind becomes too much for him to bear, and he wishes he could turn his thoughts off like normal people seem to be able to do. Sometimes, he wishes for sleep. 

Most of the time, sleep only comes when he’s so exhausted that his body simply overrides his mind and he passes out. He tries not to let it come to that these days because it upsets John for some reason. Flunitrazepam has the same effect, and it’s far less dramatic. 

But sometimes, nothing works. Sometimes his mind just goes on and on and on and Sherlock feels like he might die from exhaustion, and he just needs something to turn him _off_. 

One of those nights, he went to John’s bedroom. John has a stillness about him, something eternally calm and quiet, something untouchable and unchangeable, an anchor, a mountain, something to rest on and cling to and hide inside. And that night, Sherlock craved that stillness, that quiet, that calm, the kindness and generosity with which John took Sherlock to his bed, no questions asked, no explanation necessary, even though he knows exactly what Sherlock is and what he is capable of. 

As it turns out, John’s hands, his mouth, his breath against Sherlock’s skin, are like conductors for silence, because when John touches him, Sherlock’s mind goes still. 

And when John’s done wringing the thoughts out of him and replacing them with sensation, overriding Sherlock’s galloping mind with pure physical stimuli, Sherlock sleeps. 

It’s almost a miracle, that John is capable of this, of making him still, of making him _feel_ , of making him sleep. Nobody’s ever done this to Sherlock, and Sherlock’s never _wanted_ anybody to do this to him. But John is different from anyone else Sherlock has ever met, so it stands to reason that he alone can do what neither drugs nor self-hypnosis nor sheer physical exhaustion are capable of doing. 

What scares Sherlock is that he’s starting to get used to it. That he’s starting to need it. That he’s starting to rely on it, and that’s just never a good idea. 

It’s a bit like a drug. An addictive rush that takes him out of his own mind and lets him rest. And he craves it almost as much. 

This is why Sherlock doesn’t allow himself the indulgence of John’s bed very often. He _wants_ it almost constantly, almost every night John goes to bed, and from the look that John sometimes gives him, that warm, almost smiling expression on his face, he knows he could _have_ it every night. He could just go upstairs with John and strip him and touch him all over and have him in every way imaginable, and John would let him, would encourage him even, and with every hit, Sherlock would get more addicted, more dependent, more strung out when John’s not around. 

And he can’t, he _won’t_ let himself grow dependent on John. Because sooner or later, one of two things will happen: Sherlock will get bored with John or, infinitely more likely, John will leave. 

But on the nights when he can’t stand it any longer, when there’s an itch under his skin and a roaring in his mind that’s as if all the details in the world have come to live on the inside of his skull, he goes to John’s bedroom like a puppet on a sting, he admits the ugly, sordid truth: It’s too late, he’s already lost, he’s hopelessly and entirely addicted to John Watson, and there aren’t enough nicotine patches in the world to cure him. 

And if there were a cure, Sherlock wouldn’t want it. Because for as long as he has John Watson, he wants to feel like this. And if he ever stops having John, he will want to feel strung out and miserable and like the world is ending, because it very probably will be. 

V 

John affects Sherlock like nobody else ever has (or very likely will). John makes him feel, John makes him care, John makes him _better_. 

And Sherlock can’t figure out _why_. 

There are a few superficial reasons why he and John click. There’s the obvious and shallow fact that they’re both severe adrenaline junkies with near-suicidal reckless streaks. There’s John’s admiration for him and their mutual obsession with crime-fighting and catching bad guys. There’s John’s intelligence, and his capacity as a fighter. There’s the fact that John’s the only person who’s ever bothered to rush after Sherlock into the darkness to drag him out again. Also, John’s killed for him, and they both know it, and this fact alone would be enough to explain their partnership to anyone who isn’t Sherlock. 

He also knows that facing down death together and escaping by the skin of their teeth made him almost psychically aware of John in a way he wasn’t before. Also, John has some qualities that Sherlock obviously lacks, patience, practicality, common sense, which make them a very good team in every way. 

But that’s only scratching the surface of something that feels as deep and murky and endless as the Pacific Ocean. 

The thing is, Sherlock _should_ be bored by John by now. But he isn’t. 

Part of it is that John is a walking contradiction, and Sherlock is one of the very, very few people who know just how entirely damaged John is. And the most brilliant thing about him is that nobody could tell by looking at him, especially now that he’s shed the limp. John looks normal, he sounds and behaves normal, but he isn’t. He’s an addict and a hunter, and at the same time he’s capable of a deep and sincere empathy, he’s highly moral and he kills without a second thought, he’s a doctor and a weapon, he’s the still waters that are deeper than any ocean and wilder than any storm. He knows Sherlock’s darker sides and he likes him anyway. 

But Sherlock _knows_ all this already, knew after their first case together, same as he knows pretty much everything else about John. 

John never drinks because he’s mortally afraid of becoming an alcoholic. He joined the Army because he couldn’t help either his father or his sister and hated watching them destroy themselves. He almost certainly tried to kill himself at least once, after he figured out he couldn’t operate anymore. He still dreams of Afghanistan, and a lot of these dreams aren’t bad. He loves and hates the work in the clinic about equally. He dated Sarah because he thought he should, not because he actually wanted to. Sherlock’s not the first man he touched, but he’s the first man he really _wanted_. He doesn’t really care about the head in the fridge and the Petri dishes in the sink, he just uses them to defend himself against being completely bullied over by Sherlock, which he will never, ever, allow. 

John isn’t afraid of Sherlock, not even a little bit, even though sometimes he looks like he thinks he should be. He knows Sherlock knows everything anyway, so he enjoys Sherlock’s attention instead of being scared of it like everybody else is. 

John’s so transparent that Sherlock can read everything in his face and his body and his voice, he’s not a challenge at all, but Sherlock still finds himself staring at John for hours, reading every nuance of thought and feeling, mesmerised without having the faintest idea _why_. 

He also _wants_ John quite intensely for no logical reason. He craves John’s self-contained stillness, that’s true, and sometimes he wants to crack him open and crawl inside him to find that unruffled calm and smash it to bits or else absorb it entirely into himself, but if he really wanted to destroy John, he could, and he finds he has no desire to do that. 

John’s also less handsome than any other man Sherlock’s ever had in his bed, but none of them ever affected Sherlock the way John does, it was never more than a fleeting distraction, and with John it’s immediate and all-consuming and real. And it isn’t that, objectively, the sex is better, it’s something else entirely, and Sherlock can’t figure out what that something else _is_. 

And then, sometimes, when John smiles at him, warm and comfortable and fond, Sherlock feels this entirely inexplicable warmth in his stomach and this entirely unreasonable acceleration of his pulse, and sometimes when Sherlock stares at him, John’s almost amused, like he knows something Sherlock doesn’t, and it drives Sherlock nearly to distraction that he doesn’t know _why_. 

Maybe, at the end of the day, that’s the explanation for Sherlock’s continued fascination. That he and John are an unsolvable equation that always has at least one more unknown variable for every one Sherlock identifies, like a problem that evolves in complexity and always answers questions with more questions. Sherlock’s favourite kind of puzzle. 

And maybe, if he ever does find the answer to the unaskable question, he will lose interest and it will all be meaningless once more. But maybe the answer will make everything even more interesting, even more intense, even more addictive. 

The point is, he doesn’t know. And for the first time in his life, he isn’t sure that he wants to. 


End file.
